Valentines Day Bolt Action vs The Wife

Jen and I decided that after dinner the perfect end to our Valentines was of course going to be a war-game. We hadn't played Bolt Action for a while so that was what ended up on the table. We didn't quite get the game finished on the night so it sat for a few days at turn 3 and got finished up on the Monday.

Pregame bombardment took a fairly even toll on both sides of the table

Early game had my Germans keeping the Japanese forces fairly well pinned down.

As per usual for our games Jen's Kamikaze Antitank teams managed to get through to my armour. 

As the game was spaced out a bit and due to the fact that I now have to zip and email my photos to myself off my phone it's taken a while to get this one typed up and naturally I've forgotten a fair amount of the action. That being said it was a fun little game and though the end results don't show it very well Jen was starting to push back fairly well during turns 5 and 6, I have a feeling that if we had have gotten the 7th turn she would have evened out the score.

Cancon Trip 2019

Not much in the way of hobby the last week or so, but the wife, Arwen and myself headed down to Canberra for CanCon 2019 over the weekend. Jen and I have been using it as a yearly holiday for ourselves but this year took down the youngest to see what she thought of it.

As usual we detoured over to the Australian War Memorial, but this year we added the National Museum and checked out the Rome City and Empire exhibit currently on loan out there. I have to say it was an exceptional display.

CanCon itself was great and I snapped a few photos here and there of some of the nicer table layouts.

I've got a few things on the go at the moment, ranging from my ongoing Tyranids to a mass of Zulus to be followed by some colonial British. So hopefully I'll have something more hobby or game related to post up soon.

1914 vs The Youngest

Arwen and I finally managed to get a game in of the 1914 rule set from Great Escape Games. Her Belgium force may not be quite done, but she was far enough along we could finally get some minis on the table and see how the game played.

The game play is based around the management of command tokens and morale tokens. At the start of each turn you allocate your command tokens across the various battalions of your force, then use them to activate your units as required. As a unit activates the difficulty to reactivate them is increased each time. This can be further increased as they come under fire and begin to take morale tokens.

By the end of the second turn we'd got our heads around the mechanics and both really enjoyed the game. I did manage to win the game at the end of the fifth turn having taken two of her battalions off the table, but it was quite a close game. The use of the cavalry as a bluffing/scouting mechanic was also quite a nice touch which led to a couple of tense moments for both of us as we stumbled upon the others' actual regiments. We'll be getting another game in soon hopefully and I'll try to organise a more detailed AAR.

1914 German Brigade Completed

Ended up finishing them off this morning. I think they look rather nice now they're all finished off. Arwen did end up falling a little behind, but it's too be forgiven as she's doing a final push on the study for her learners permit. She is at the point where everything but her guns are primed and ready to hit the bases so the current plan is for a game on Sunday.

1. Completed cavalry

2. Completed dismounted cavalry

3. German Command

4. Field gun sections

5. Finished German WW1 Brigade

6. Infantry Battalions 

7. Infantry Battalions

I've read the rulebook a couple of times and it seems to be a fairly simple set of rules, just have to wait and see how it plays once it's on the table now.

More 1914 German Progress

I've managed to keep up at least a few hours of work each day for the last few days and things are progressing nicely. I've finished off the infantry except for a coat of varnish (the weather hasn't really been cooperating for a rattle can), the artillery just needs a wash and a touch up (and to be glued down) and I've made a fair start on the cavalry stands. Not sure if I'll get too much more done today but I'm hoping to be able to have them done and on the table by Sunday.

1. Wash down on infantry

2. Alternate view

3. Machine gun section

4. WIP on the artillery

5. WIP on mounted cavalry

6. WIP on unmounted cavalry

7. Finished infantry and machine gun section

8. Alternate view infantry and machine gun sections

I toyed with straight static grass at first, but after the first I ended up mixing up a couple of fine flocks (dark and burnt green) as well a little static grass for a bit of depth. They may not be the most finished of projects I've done but from a table top view I quite happy with result.

Progress on 1914 Germans

Not a hugely exciting update today. Spent a fair amount of the day painting. I haven't started the cavalry yet but I've made a decent dent in the infantry, finishing off all the main uniforms, flesh and made a fair start on the webbing.

1. Bases and uniforms

2. Flesh blocked in

3. Started on webbing

Arwen didn't get much done as she was rather engrossed in her new book, though she has finished off her bases and seeing as she approached things a different way has begun to glue down her Belgians.